Starting a Tarot Business
If you have decided to take the leap and begin your own Tarot card reading business, you may have many unanswered questions about how exactly to do it. So, before you let that discourage you, know that many people have been in that situation before.
To start a tarot reading business, you will need to determine your services based on what spreads and readings you will offer, price your services based on the value you offer, deal with business legalities, design and implement a brand, and spend time and effort promoting your business.
Don’t let the fear of starting a business hold you back from following your dreams. Starting your own Tarot reading business finally lets you earn the money you deserve, so take a look at the ultimate guide we have for you below that covers all you need to know and what you need to do to start a successful Tarot reading business.
Determine Your Services
The first thing you will need to do is determine what services you will be offering and how you will be offering them (virtually or in-person). You have a lot of room when it comes to this so take some time to consider the following factors before you choose:
- Your strengths and weaknesses as a tarot reader – Identify where your strengths are and utilize those to help you determine what services you will offer. For example, if you do better with shorter readings or relationship readings, you should stick to that.
- How long you want the average reading to be – In the case of being self-employed, your time is money, so when you list how long a reading will be, make sure it is worth both your time and the person you are reading for. If you typically like to offer shorter, one-card readings, keep this in mind.
- Your favorite tarot spreads to read – Whether you would rather stick to the three-card spread or prefer to go big with longer readings, then only offer those. Additionally, the topics you will do readings for is up to you. If you want to only offer relationship readings, you can.
- If you want people to come to your house or go to their house – Sometimes you may not want people to bring their energy into your home all day, so make sure to decide before you will complete these readings. If you choose to do the tarot readings for people in your own home, you should keep in mind certain licenses may be required.
- If you want to offer virtual or online services – While some people may feel that online readings are tacky, many people are still super successful by doing it through only a video, phone call, or emails. Keep in mind if you choose this option, you are not limited to local clientele.
- How much time you have per week – Before choosing which services you will offer, keep in mind how much time per week you want to spend reading. If you only offer lengthy services, then you will be dedicating a lot more time.
After taking all of these factors into consideration, you can determine a list of tarot reading services that you will offer much easier.
Types of Services
When it comes to picking what services and how many services you will offer, it is completely up to you and your preferences.
Try sticking to 4-5 different services that vary in length (30 minutes or 1 hour) and have various options for people to pick from, along with different price options. Here are some examples of different kinds of services you may offer, based on the most popular readings:
- Three-Card Spread (Past, Present, Future)
- One Card to Answer One Question
- The Celtic Cross Spread
- 30-minute Reading (Unlimited Questions)
- 1-hour Reading (Unlimited Questions)
- 30-minute Love and Relationship Reading
- 30-minute Career Path Reading
- 1-hour group reading (up to 5 people)
Choose a handful that you would love to offer, as the more you enjoy yourself, the more your clients will enjoy the process. However, limit the amount you offer as too many could also start to become overwhelming.
Once you have chosen, write a list of the services you will offer with a brief description of what each is and how long it will take. Sticking to 4 or 5 is recommended to make sure you do not overwhelm yourself or your potential clients with too many choices. Also, keep in mind that you should offer at least 2 different lengths of readings and feel free to get creative with what you offer.
Price Your Services
Here is the part that will make you money, your prices. It is extremely important to remember that you should not under-sell your services or over-sell your services when pricing your services. This is because the price you have people pay directly reflects the value you are offering them.
So, as you begin, determine what your costs are and go from there. Potential costs for your business and services can be things like:
- Office space
- Tarot deck
- Sage or other items for cleansing
- Your laptop or cell phone for virtual readings
- Gas or travel if you go to the client
- Website costs
- Business license costs
- Marketing and advertising costs
In addition to these costs, you are also spending your time, so consider what a decent hourly wage would be for you. Remember, people are paying you for the experience that you have, not for the time it takes you to put that experience into action.
Choosing Your Prices
Once you have a list of approximate costs, break it down into how many costs you will have to pay per month. Then take that number and divide it by the average number of readings you will do on a monthly basis.
For example, if it costs you $200 per month to keep your business up and running, and you have about 10 clients per month, you will want to work the $200 monthly cost you have into the price you charge per client. In this case, that would mean that it costs you $20 per client. So, as you move on to price your services, you should have a fixed amount of $20 worked into every reading price.
Then you can increase the price from the cost you incur per client to account for the profit you want to make, which will be what you get paid for your time spent doing the reading.
Once you know this amount, take a look below to see how much you should be charging for the average reading altogether.
- With little experience – As a beginner and someone who has not been reading tarot for very long, the average reading price is around $30-$80, depending on how much time you spend reading. If you were hired to work at a party or a fair, you might need to lower your prices accordingly, as they will be quicker, potentially 15-minute readings.
- With experience – As you begin to become a Tarot reading expert, gain a lot of experience, or you notice more and more clients coming your way, you can begin to charge $80+ for an hour of your time. This is when you can make higher than a living wage as a Tarot reader, so keep this in mind if you want to grow your business.
Register Your Business
Before you go forward with registering your business and making it legitimate, you will need to name your business. You can always do tarot reading as a freelancer, and in that case, you would use your legal name as the business name. But, if you ever want to expand your business and hire people to work with you, you should choose a name to register your business under.
When you are choosing a name, you should always look into if other businesses already have that name and if the website domain is available, other than that, have fun with it and be creative.
Permits and Licenses
If you have decided to register as a business, you can begin to form your legal entity as an LLC. As an LLC, you will be protected from being liable personally if your business ends up getting sued. If you are unsure how to do this, you can look into companies that can do it for you for a small fee.
Legal Zoom is a great place to register a new LLC, you can do all of the paperwork yourself, but Legal Zoom makes it a lot easier.
Additionally, you may also need to obtain specific permits or licenses to offer the services you do. To find out more about this, you can find local assistance from the US Small Business Association.
Business Insurance
As a business, you should also consider a form of insurance to cover you financially in the case of a large and unexpected loss occurring.
There are many different types of business insurance, but one of the main types you can get if you are unaware of your business losses is General Liability Insurance, take some time to go over what insurance you need to make sure you are always ready.
Tax Registration
There are two parts to taxes that you have to consider, both collecting taxes for the services you charge for and declaring the income that you make so you can pay income tax.
Since you will be working for yourself, nobody is there to pay the government on your behalf, so it is up to you to declare the income through your business and pay the applicable taxes.
As for collecting taxes for your services, most states will require you to charge sales tax, and this amount will differ based on which state you live in.
If you have any more questions, you can find out all you need to know about businesses’ taxes on the IRS website.
Open a Business Bank Account
One of the last technicalities you should address before you open your business is getting a business banking and checking account. This is important as you will want to protect your assets and keep your business expenses separate from your personal expenses.
Take some time and do some research to find a bank that will best support you and your small business, and once you begin to build credit for your business, this will make obtaining loans in the future easier.
Figure Out the Accounting
Before you start collecting revenue, you should also develop a system for tracking revenue, expenses, and all other money-related expenses. This will make tax season much easier and help you remain aware of how much money your business is profiting and spending.
If you have extra money as your business gets bigger, you can also hire an accountant for this position as the more money you have to handle, the harder it may get to deal with on your own. It’s also important to do this properly to make sure that you are following all business laws.
Define Your Brand and Your Business
Your brand is an essential part of your business as it represents and shows potential clients who you are and what you are all about. As you open a business, you will need to figure out a few main things about your brand so you can show up consistently to your audience and build trust.
If you do not have a consistent brand, people may not believe in the services you are offering, and while the look of your brand shouldn’t be a determining factor, they really can be in the world of business. Just as you may trust the product with nicer packaging, people may judge the service based on how it looks.
Mission Statement
Your mission statement should be clear, and whether you plaster it all over your website or just keep it to yourself, it is an important thing to know. Your mission statement represents why you are doing what you are doing, and the result you hope to have by doing what you do.
Luckily, because you chose to be a tarot reader, you most likely got into what you are doing for the benefit of other people, so describe what value you bring to these people and what you offer them in a sentence or two.
Once you have a mission, let it carry your brand and be the foundation that everything else lays upon. People will connect with you and your mission, and if it is strong enough, it will convince them to invest their time and money with you over anyone else.
What Makes You Different From Others
Understand your strengths as a brand and what your advantages may be. Whether you offer longer, shorter, or unique readings, use this to your advantage and make it very clear to your potential clients why they should get a reading with you and not anyone else.
What makes you different could also be your personality, so be yourself and create an online community to attract more clients.
Target Customer
Choose who your ideal customer will be. This is important to consider as the clearer you get on who your customer is, the easier it will be to promote yourself to them.
How old are they? What problems do they have in their lives? Are they spiritual people or not? What do they do in their spare time? How much money do they make? Where do they live?
Answering these questions will help you write out a customer profile, and through that, you can learn where your customers are, what they like, and how to advertise and promote yourself so they will see it. You can also use them as a target audience profile on social media advertisements you may use by knowing these things.
Consistent Aesthetic
The last piece of branding yourself and your business is a consistent and appealing aesthetic.
Choose what colors you want to use, what fonts you like writing in, and the overall vibe you want people to feel when they look at your online presence and the place you do your readings. Once you have chosen, use the same look on everything branded with your business name.
Remember to make your aesthetic something unique to you, and don’t be afraid to do something out of the ordinary. Not only will it look great, but it will be something people will remember you by.
Build a Website
As a tarot reader, you will need a place where people can learn about who you are and what you have to offer and a place for them to purchase and schedule a tarot reading.
You have two options here, hire someone to make you a professional website, or create it yourself with WordPress. (This site is designed using WordPress.) It’s not that difficult to figure out but it will take you a little while to figure it out.
No matter what you choose, you should always invest in a website domain. This will make you look more professional as your website domain will be the same as your business name. This typically is paid for through a yearly fee, but it can be considered an expense within your Tarot reading business.
Add Testimonials
If you have ever done a Tarot reading before, even if it was just for friends or family, ask them to write a short review of your services. People are more likely to trust you and be willing to give you their money if they know other people have had a positive experience with you.
You could even put the testimonials on your website’s homepage, as this will make sure it is one of the first things that a potential client will see.
About Me Page
Also, make sure that you have added a page all about you. It is best to be open with people about who you are and why you are a Tarot reader. While this can help build trust, it also helps people build a relationship with you, keeping them coming back for more readings.
Feel free to include a picture here as well. This is especially helpful if you do virtual readings as it allows the client to feel more connected to you.
Promote Yourself
As someone who owns your own business, it is your job to get your name out there and promote what you have to sell as much as you possibly can. There are many different ways you can approach selling yourself, and the more places you are promoting yourself, the more chances you have of people finding you.
Below is a detailed list of different ways you can promote yourself. and remember not to skip over this part. This can be why you cannot make a sustainable amount of money from your tarot reading business.
Posters and Flyers
If you target people local to you, you must get out there and place posters and flyers all over your neighborhood. Find places where there is a lot of foot traffic and put your posters up where it is easily seen. Do this every month or so to make sure your name stays out there.
This flyer or poster should convey your brand, explain what you do, leave out the prices, and instead direct them to your website to book a reading. You can use Canva, a free and easy graphic design tool to design them. Also, feel free to offer discounts on these flyers to gain more attention and increase the number of clients you may get.
Use Social Media
Social media should be your number one tool in this day and age if you decide to start your own company. Here is a list of different social media platforms that you can make accounts for your business on:
- YouTube
- TikTok
Instagram and Facebook should be non-negotiables due to how popular they are right now and how easy they are to use, but you don’t have to stop there.
Use social media to promote your services, your brand, and your mission as it is both free and efficient. You should be posting content regularly and engaging with your audience as this is a great way to get your name recognized in the tarot reading world and a place you can do some advertising to find potential clients.
Develop Advertisements
Using Canva, you can design professional-looking advertisements that you can promote through social media or Google Ads.
Through both Facebook and Instagram, you can easily choose who you want to see your ads making it a fast and efficient way to get more people to your website.
Through Google Ads, you can get your business in front of people on a larger scale. This will bump up your website to the top on google, and the best part is, you only pay if people click on your website link.
Having these advertisements and spending a little money to get your name out there, is a great way to bring in clients.
Start a Blog
If you are looking for more ways to get your name out there, you could always start your own blog. You can use this to provide free content regarding tarot readings and get more attention to your website where you will offer your services.
Start a YouTube Channel
Another option to getting more attention to your name and your business is through a YouTube channel. Many tarot readers are offering general tarot readings through their YouTube channels and have developed a large clientele base that is loyal to them.
The best part about this is that if you gain enough views and improve your subscriber count, you can actually make a small side income from doing this.
If you are looking for some professional tips on how to start a YouTube channel, you can watch this video below:
Give Away Free Offerings
On top of all the promotions you are doing, giving away some stuff for free is a great way to get your name out there and increase the attention your website gets.
Some offers you can do are:
- Free one-card readings on social media
- Free general Tarot card readings in a YouTube video
- Free content on Tarot readings through a blog post
The list is endless, but remember, don’t give away too much for free. Your main goal is to develop a customer base that will keep coming back and attract more attention to your business overall.
Final Thoughts
If you have decided to make the ambitious choice of starting your own Tarot card reading business, there is a lot you now know that you need to consider. Nonetheless, you shouldn’t let that hold you back.
After going through this guide, you now know all about how you can start your business. This includes what you should offer, how you should promote and brand what you offer, and all the legalities that come with starting a business.
As you get out there in the Tarot reading world, remember to just be yourself and trust your intuition as you begin this amazing and exciting new journey.